HexGL
A futuristic WebGL racer at absurd speed. Made by Thibaut Despoulain.
Arrow keys or WASD to steer. Shift to brake and drift. Choose a track from the menu to start.
How to play
- Pick a track and difficulty from the opening menu.
- Your ship accelerates on its own. Your job is the line through each corner.
- Scraping the walls costs speed and shield.
- Finish the laps before your shield runs out.
Playing it better
- Brake before the corner, not in it. Entering slow and leaving fast is quicker over a lap.
- Use the drift on tight bends. Fighting the turn with steering alone scrubs off more speed.
- Stay off the walls. Shield damage accumulates and there is no way to repair it mid race.
- Learn one track properly rather than trying all of them. Memory is worth more than reflexes here.
About HexGL
HexGL is a futuristic racing game built by Thibaut Despoulain with Three.js and WebGL, released under the MIT licence. It was one of the projects that convinced a lot of people the browser was a serious platform for 3D, with bloom, motion blur, reflective surfaces and a sense of speed that holds up years later.
The racing is in the anti gravity tradition: your craft accelerates by itself, the tracks bank and twist, and the only real controls are steering and a brake that doubles as a drift. That reduction is deliberate. With no throttle to manage, every mistake is a line through a corner, and improving means learning the track rather than mastering a control scheme.
Shield takes the place of lap times as your main pressure. Contact with the walls drains it, and there is no repair, so a clean lap is not just faster, it is the only way to reach the end of a race. Players who chase the racing line and avoid contact routinely finish tracks that look impossible when you are bouncing between barriers.
It is the heaviest game in this catalogue and it needs a machine with working WebGL and a keyboard, so it is best on a laptop or desktop. Give it a few seconds to load its textures on the first run. The full source, including the shaders and the track geometry, is open and worth a look if you are curious how a browser game gets this look.
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Common questions
What does HexGL need to run?+
A modern browser with WebGL enabled and a keyboard. It is the most demanding game on this site.
Why does it take a moment to load?+
It downloads 3D geometry, textures and audio on the first run. After that the browser caches them.
How do I drift?+
Hold shift while steering into a corner. It is faster than steering alone on tight bends.
Who made it?+
Thibaut Despoulain, also known as BKcore. The project is MIT licensed and linked from this page.
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